They Think They’re Solving World Hunger When They’re Really Just Making A Suggestion For Dinner
Some key questions to ask yourself and your team.
Basic, really important ones:
Where is our team on the following involvement scale?
Who should we ask to determine if we are correct in our assessment of where we are on this scale?
Are we at the appropriate point on this scale for our level and expertise in the organization?
If not, why not?
Interesting ones:
If you were being brutally honest at what point on the scale above do you think your boss wants you to be?
If you were being brutally honest at what point on the scale do you want your team to be?
What do you think drives teams to want to do more than they are asked to do?
What is it like to be on a team that is at the far right of the scale?
Key points of this reason to hate work teams:
Initially and from an efficiency perspective it is more important to know WHERE your team is on the involvement scale than WHY it is at that point. You can work on the WHY while you’re doing a good job doing what you’ve been asked to do.
Only successful teams move along this scale to the right. Unsuccessful teams fall right off the left end and you might even fall further if you are on a team like that.
Discussion and comment points for this post:
Have ever worked with, or on a team that discovers they are trying to do more than they have really been asked to do? What was the state of the team after this discovery and what did you do?
Most organizations will say they want teams as far to the right of the scale above as possible but when teams actually begin to push and act at that level, the team is ‘reigned in’. Why do you think this happens and have you experienced it?
Do you have other ways of ensuring a team is really focused on what they have been asked to do right from the start?
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